


Competency Kink for Failures

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Competence Kink, F/M, Mud, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27392134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: Lace Harding is a woman of many talents, many competencies, and many skills.Right now, almost all of them are failing her.
Relationships: Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi/Lace Harding
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: 2020 A Paragon of Their Kind Dragon Age Dwarf Exchange





	Competency Kink for Failures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WizardofOzymandias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardofOzymandias/gifts).



Lace Harding is a woman of many talents, many competencies, and many skills.

Right now, almost all of them are failing her. She slips off the last step, faceplants into the mud, and comes up spluttering.

There's a few other scouts around and they have to hide their smiles behind their hands, but Lace gets the idea.

"Ha ha," she says, standing and trying to brush the mud off, except she needs a full on bath, not just a dusting of her hands. At least it was clean mud?

"Okay down there?" someone asks.

It's Krem, standing over her, framed in light and looking like a knight in… soft clothes, no armour or leathers to speak of. And of course he'd be one of the ones to see her spectacular fall.

"Been better," she admits.

He holds both hands out to her, offering assistance which she's gratefully to take even if --

"Oh, no, now you're muddy too." Now Lace doesn't just feel clumsy, she feels like a jerk.

Krem chuckles. "Just my hands, and I can wash those. Come on, you need to wash up too." He leads her to his room in the Herald's Rest, hushing her protests that she'd be fine, he didn't need to fuss.

"It's not fussing, you're literally covered in mud," Krem points out.

He's not wrong, and now she's getting mud all over the floor. Cabot's going to kill her.

Krem brings out a wet cloth and hands it to her so she can at least wipe her face off. There's more mud than a simple cloth can handle, but it makes a dent.

"What happened, anyways?" Krem asks. He spins a narrow chair and sits on it backwards; Lace has never seen him really use furniture the right way before.

"Just slipped," she says. Lace peers into the little looking glass over the basin. Her face is clean now and her hair isn't terrible, but there's mud down her neck and into her shirts and everything else.

"Doesn't seem like you. You sure you weren't pushed?" he asks with a chuckle.

Lace shrugs. "There could be a huge conspiracy to make me look like a fool, but I imagine I did it to myself. I haven't always been the poised, beautiful creature you see before you."  
"Oh?"

Lace laughs ruefully. "I was the clumsiest kid. See this scar on my lip? I was standing there, talking to my mother, and bang, smashed my face on the big table in the kitchen."

Krem beams at her. "See this circle on my palm?" He holds it out for inspection. "Stabbed myself with a quill, just trying to write out my homework one night."

Lace takes his hand in hers, all worries about muddying him up forgotten. She turns his hand over and sure enough, there's a little puckered circle on the palm and the back. "Did the quill go through?"

Krem rubs the back of his neck. "Well, yeah, it was... It's less of a funny story than I thought."

Lace doesn't like the storm cloud that's passing over him. She hurries to change the subject, to bring back the sunshine that normally emanates from him. 

"Did you ever hurt yourself doing something so basic, it was actually weird?" she asks.

Krem scoffs. "Loads of times."

She starts rolling up one pant leg and drops her voice low to build dramatic tension. "How about just from _kneeling on a cushion_?" She shows him the thin, delicate scar criss-crossing her knee. Mud flakes everywhere around Krem's quarters.

Krem leans around the back of the chair and squints. He whistles as he takes it all in. "That's a nice one. What did you kneel on?"

"Sewing needle. It hurt, but I couldn't see it. I panicked and just made it worse."

Krem howls with laughter. "'I panicked and just made it worse,' that's brilliant. That should be my personal motto."

Lace nods emphatically and laughs along. "Agreed."

The laughter stops, gradually and not weirdly, but it stops all the same and they're left in the quiet that fills the space. Lace still has her pants rolled up and Krem's still leaning uncomfortably in his chair. There's no logical reason she's still standing here, but she doesn't want to leave.

"Thank you," she tells him, and means it. "I needed a laugh and a friend today."

"A friend?" he says. Krem rises from his seat, crosses the small room to stand in front of her.

"Oh, I uh…"

"No, I only meant I was glad to hear you say it. I don't have a lot of friends, 'sides the Chargers and they're a bit…"

"They're a lot," she corrects. She thinks about the last night she spent at the tavern with the Chargers, right after the three days she spent on the road with them. They're a lot of noise, a lot of ruckus, and a lot of heart. She enjoyed them, make no mistake, but they were _a lot_.

Krem chuckles. Up close, Lace can see little laugh lines crinkle around his eyes. He's… real pretty, she thinks. But then she shushes that thought away, because that's a weird thought to have about a friend.

"Anyway, I'm glad to have a friend like you, clumsy as you are," he says. He's close; she could reach out and touch him easily. She could. She won't. She kind of wants to. He looks so huggable. And he didn't laugh when she fell in the mud. Well, not more than anyone else.

Krem reaches out and brushes her cheek. Lace feels the fire under his touch instantly. It could be the heat from his skin or it could be embarrassment, nerves, or even desire burning up her skin.

"Missed a spot," Krem said, pulling his hand away to show her.

"Oh my gosh," she squeaks out, laughing nervously. "I thought you were going to kiss me."

"I was," he admits.

"...ohmygosh."

"Sorry," he starts. That nervous hand goes back to his neck, rubbing furiously. She wants to still it with one of her own, to tell him she's an idiot, and then kiss him senseless.

"I'm such an idiot," Lace cuts in. "Don't be sorry, it's me, it's all me. And I'm still getting mud all over. I've gotta go. Thanks again, friend." Great start, terrible finish. Zero out of ten for application.

Lace scampers away as fast as she can, knowing she's rude and not caring. Or rather, she cares way too much and she doesn't want anyone to know, least of all Krem. She makes it back to her little room and slams the door behind her, bolting it and sinking to the floor in shame. Shame and self-loathing. Shame, and self-loathing, and mud.

She called him 'friend.' Krem, the one she wants to kiss, the one who almost kissed her. There could have been kissing! Instead, she called him 'friend' and got mud on everything he owns.

Being a clumsy idiot got her into this trouble, and only one thing would get her out; being a total cool girl badass who doesn't fall down.

Lace washed quickly and stripped out of her muddy clothes, trading them for the green shirt she knows makes her hair look like cascading fire and tugs her second favourite pair of boots on. Once she's had an hour to scrub up the other ones, she'd really be in fine form, but they're too muddy right now.

Krem's room is on the second floor of the tavern. She throws a little pebble, hearing the satisfying 'tink' when it hits the glass. A moment later, the window swings in and Krem's face appears.

"Hi friend," he calls down with a smirk.

"Ha ha," she calls back. "Come down."

Lace lets out a shaky breath when he disappears from the window, but he comes outside in a moment or two. "Lace."

"Krem."

"What can I do for you?"

"I want to fight you," she says, because she really is just going to blurt out every thought in her head without editing it today.

"I understand," he says solemnly.

"Really? Because I had a whole speech planned explaining it."

"No need, really. It's clear. You really wanted to kiss me and missed your shot. Now the only way to recover your honour is to put me in the ground."

Krem's joking with her, after all of the mess she's made of the day, because of course he is. What's not funny is how close he actually is to the truth.

She glares, with no heat behind it. He beams.

"Close enough," she tells him, and ducks into a fighting stance. It takes a second for him to realize what she's done, and by the time he readies himself, she's got him on his back in the grass.

"Very unfair," he tells her. "But clean. I didn't even see it coming."

"Thanks," she says. She's aware she's straddling his hips, but neither one of them seem to be in a rush to do anything about it.

"Are you going to let me up?" he asks. He doesn't sound particularly put out, just curious.

Lace makes a show of mock-consideration. "Isn't it customary for the winner to receive a prize?"

Krem ponders this, then nods. "Ten thousand silver pieces and the finest steed in all the land?"

"How about that kiss?"

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, that won't take as long to find."

When they kiss, it's the easiest thing in the world.

Or maybe they're both just really good at it, another in the long line of things Lace excels at. She'll be sure not to kiss him by any mud puddles, just to be safe.


End file.
